Braun: Tenafly lawyer's work with Ocean County homeless reveals a kinder side of legal profession

William Perlman/The Star-LedgerJeffrey Wild, in his day job, handles enormous corporate lawsuits involving millions but, in his spare time, he defends the homeless and recently won a decision in a Toms River Court to allow the homeless to camp out on public land.

No question, Jeffrey Wild is a suit. Has to be. He’s a corporate litigator who deals with people and corporations who count their money in the billions. But he’s not an empty suit. Not a soulless one. In fact, if there were more suits like Jeffrey Wild, this would be a better state, a more livable place.

Unlike many other suits — unlike most? — he also uses his intelligence, his skills, his imaginative approach to law to help those who need but can’t afford him.

"I could not sleep at night just helping those who can afford the best. I also want to help those who deserve the best," Wild says.

He is defending dozens of homeless people camped out in a public wood in Lakewood. So far, Wild has prevented their eviction from a tent city and has gone on the legal offensive, arguing that centuries-old Poor Laws and a constitutional "right to survive" require that the town and Ocean County and, maybe, ultimately, the state, have a duty to provide shelter to the homeless.

"Maybe I’m naïve, but I’ve always believed that, in the worst case scenario, if you lose your job, you can’t make the rent, you’re in foreclosure, there’s always some place in America where you can find shelter," says the 52-year-old father of two from Tenafly.

He believed that, he says, until he met people in Lakewood and other places in Ocean County who lived in the woods because there was no place else. "I was shocked," he says.

Earlier this month, Wild won a ruling from Superior Court Judge Joseph Foster in Toms River that the squatters can stay — for now. The judge wants Wild to work out a solution with the town and the county. Meanwhile, Wild’s case is going forward.

"Either the case will settle or we’re going to have a landmark trial of the claims of the homeless against the county and municipal government," he says.

The town and county say they do provide serves for the homeless — up to $20 million last year, says Jack Sahradnik, the county’s lawyer. But Wild’s case contends that, no matter what the county spends, it results in men, women and children living without shelter.

Wild is a partner with Lowenstein Sandler, one of the state’s largest and most powerful law firms. He is co-chairman of its Capital Markets Litigation Group. He’s an expert, the firm’s website says, in "complex, high stakes financial litigation." But Lowenstein Sandler has a tradition of social action — and so does Wild.

His father, he says, was the son of an immigrant Romanian gypsy whose husband abandoned her and their three children during the Depression. Stanley Wild could remember being awakened in the middle of the night because the family had to flee rent collectors.

"I give the homeless an open mind because I am the descendant of one," he says.

Jeffrey Wild is a believer in the redeeming virtues of capitalism. He doesn’t want to change the system, he says &mdash "the best economic system there is" — but wants to mend what he calls "huge holes in the social safety net."

He believes rich people are "sympathetic" to causes like his. "The problem is the people who are unaware of why people are homeless — they demonize them as if they are different than everyone else. Part of our job is to let everyone know that they are remarkably like us."

Wild, a graduate of Cornell and Columbia Law School, became involved with the homeless at his first job, at the New York City firm of Paul Weiss, one of the most famous partnerships in the country. He became aware of the Lakewood encampment through his synagogue, the Nathan Barnert Memorial Temple — once known as B’nai Jeshurun — in Franklin Lakes, the oldest Reform congregation in New Jersey. He would bring supplies and food to the homeless.

Then, two years ago, he got a call from a minister who lives with the homeless saying the town wanted to evict them. "He asked, ‘Do you know a good lawyer?’" Wild recalls.

Turns out he did.

Lowenstein Sandler provided support through its Center for the Public Interest — the "pro bono," or for the public good, arm of the firm run by Kenneth Zimmerman, former chief counsel to Gov. Jon Corzine. Six lawyers and paralegals were assigned to the case; the court papers show it. They have the glitz and power reserved for high-octane commercial lawsuits.

Wild’s gone beyond the lawsuit and helped to found the New Jersey Coalition for the Homeless — www.njcoalitionhomeless.org — that is, he says, determined to end homelessness through policy changes, new laws, and, if necessary, litigation.

He says he’s serious about this, so serious he would quit the high stakes, high-income practice of commercial law if he couldn’t work for groups like the homeless.

"When there’s no longer time to take on a pro bono case, at least one like this one, then it’s time to get out of the paid practice," he says.